Zombie Apocalypse Now!

by Rachel Tsoumbakos

  Tatiana swung her crowbar and also missed.

  The group separated, Tatiana went to the left, Berta to the right. Pippa hugged her gun and shook in fright. The group of zombies howled in excitement and lunged at Pippa, she jumped back, tripped over Rosalyn’s outstretched arm, and fell on her behind. The zombies flew into a frenzy.

  Well, two of them did. Berta and Tatiana had disposed of the others.

  “Wesley!” Pippa shouted as she cowered on the ground.

  “Pippa!” was the returning scream.

  “Shoot Pippa!” Tatiana called.

  This was possibly the dumbest suggestion she could have given.

  Five shots popped off in rapid succession. Not one of them hit their target. Two whizzed close to Berta’s face though.

  “Stop it, Pippa!” she’d shouted, but the gun was empty before she’d finished her sentence.

  And still the zombie’s descended.

  Berta raced forward and pushed the two zombies. They toppled over like a pair of macabre dominos. Tatiana took advantage of their confusion and swung her trusty crowbar. The force behind it was so strong it took the zombie’s head clear off its shoulders. If their lives didn’t depend on their quick reflexes, the group would have laughed at the sight of the head as it rolled down the hall, bouncing off a wall and then coming to a stop at the door to the elevator.

  The last zombie panicked. This surprised Tatiana, since she thought they had no other emotion than ‘feed me’. And then she remembered Peter. He’d remembered her.

  This chicken shit zombie must still have a thought or two left rattling around in his empty head, she thought as she sprinted after the retreating figure. Before she had a chance to swing her crowbar, Berta fired her spear gun and ended the war.

  The silence was golden as they stood around and grinned. They’d done it!

  “Hello?” It was a feeble whisper that caught in Wesley’s throat as he spoke.

  “Wesley!” Pippa was up and off that floor as quick as a pregnant woman can be. She staggered across the hallway and into the room that held her boyfriend.

  It had taken longer to find the key and free Wesley from his cell than it had taken the women to kill all the zombies.

  None of them had been game to shoot Rosalyn in the head either, so Tatiana had dragged her body into another room and shut the door. She hoped Rosalyn didn’t reanimate like Peter or the chicken shit zombie had, with thoughts still in her head. But when they left the forensic unit, there still wasn’t a peep from that room, so they didn’t have a chance to find out.

  Each woman had to live with the guilt of that.

  Wesley explained what had happened to him while they drove home. Berta cried and didn’t listen. Tatiana tried to listen, though she was still too numb to comprehend his words. Pippa was the only one who paid him any attention. She held his hand and stared at him with adoration as his story unfolded.

  And Rosalyn was lucky she wasn’t there to hear it - since it was Walter who had originally locked Wesley up.

  He’d discovered Wesley’s journal and the fact that he had withheld the possible cure from everyone. Walter thought he was doing the right thing, or so he kept telling Wesley. The whole time though, Walter took blood samples and manipulated Wesley’s immunity. The cure had been discovered, but not before Walter had been bitten by the chicken shit zombie.

  Pippa should have made them turn back then to retrieve the notes and vials of unused vaccine against the undead.

  Instead she continued to stroke her boyfriend’s hand and rest her head on his shoulder.

  That night they three women cried and cried. Rosalyn’s death shook them up more than they realised. Berta clung to her cat, ignoring the wheezes and snuffles as she stroked him. Tatiana raided the surrounding houses and found enough booze and cigarettes to keep her happy.

  Pippa cried, but she was also thankful for the return of Wesley. It was their joyful reunion and early resulting early retirement to their room that kept Pippa safe. Wesley, of course, was immune.

  Tatiana had finished the entire bottle of whiskey. Everything was now funny as well as being viewed in double vision.

  So the sight of Martin jumping from Berta’s lap and digging his fangs into the throat of his owner was at first something for her to giggle about. She pointed and laughed some more before she felt the warm, wet spray of Berta’s blood against her cheek.

  Her giggling stopped as she wiped her hand across her face. Looking at the red on her fingers confused her, so she raised her eyes once more to Berta.

  All she saw were the marble eyes of Berta’s cat and then the pain as he tore into her face.

  Diary of Pippa Roscoe to her unborn child

  February 23rd

  (73 days after the first reported outbreak)

  Little One,

  We have reached the farm that the four of us first set out to find: Berta, Tatiana, Rosalyn and I.

  They didn’t make it. But, instead, you have your daddy back!

  It’s so peaceful up here. The house we picked isn’t actually a farm, but it is set high on the side of a hill, so we can see danger coming. There is only one road in, which sometimes worries me, but at least there are now a bunch of paths tracked through the trees, so we have plenty of escape routes if need be.

  Life is quiet, peaceful, restful, sad.

  I wonder if you will be immune like your dad.

  I think that you are.

  I think that is what is keeping me alive.

  Love always,

  Mamma Pippa.

  That was the conclusion of Zombie Apocalypse Now! Feel free to visit me at

  www.racheltsoumbakos.wordpress.com

  and tell me what you thought of the ending.

  Why not drop me a line and tell me what you thought of Zombie Apocalypse Now!

  Email: mrs.zoomby@live.com.au

  Or visit my website:

  www.racheltsoumbakos.wordpress.com

  If you liked what you read here, why not try one of my full length novels?

  Emeline and the Mutants

  (Genres: dystopia, post-apocalyptic, horror)

  What would you do if your whole family mutated into hideous creatures?

  Would you have the courage to do what had to be done when they threatened your life?

  Emeline Hart is faced with this horrifying decision when the miraculous Haum vaccine changes into something monstrous. When the mutations start, there is no way to hide the fact that the world is now filled with people who are no longer dying of cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Instead, they are becoming werewolves, vampires and trolls.

  In the midst of this, Emeline must search for her missing brother and unravel the conspiracy of events surrounding his disappearance.

  The heart pounding action intensifies as medical science goes wrong in EMELINE AND THE MUTANTS.

  Currently FREE and available from

  Amazon

  Please enjoy this excerpt of Emeline and the Mutants…

  “Only the Dead have seen the end of War.”

  -Plato

  Chapter One

  It was one of those beautiful spring days. The sky was a new shade of blue. Small, crisp white clouds sailed across it at a snail’s pace. A gentle breeze picked up the hairs that had come loose from Emeline’s ponytail.

  A bird or two chirped in a nearby tree. Emeline Hart glanced quickly towards it. Ever since the world went crazy five years ago, it was always wise to check that chirping came from real, live birds and not ones that were infected. She sighted the first bird. It was a sparrow and even from this distance, it was easy to see that it was normal.

  The second chirp came from higher up in the tree. This in itself was a fair indication of it being a live and non-mutated bird. Full zombie amplification resulted in a loss of flight in birds. Of course, if the bird were bitten within the last eight hours, flight would still be possible. Emeline eventually caught sight of the second bird.

  It was a mutant, for s
ure, but still in the early stages of mutation. This bird had originally been a magpie. Its feathers were still black and white, but its beak had faded from its normally darkened point, to a washy shade of dishwater grey. Eventually feathers would start to fray and fall out. Its skin would blister in places and fall off in others. The bird’s eyes would water to start with, but over the next two hours, that water would turn to drippy yellow pus as the infection took a strong hold.

  It was at this point that a bite from mutated creature would result in infestation at a rate of nearly seventy per cent. Eight hours after a bite, mortality was nearly guaranteed. The magpie was newly contaminated, but infection from it was still a real threat.

  Emeline knew that she would have to kill it now before it could spread its contagion. It was highly unlikely, but not impossible, that this animal could have infected others.

  Before

  Emeline Hart’s Journal

  (Found in the roof cavity of the abandoned Hart residence)

  January 8

  Things I never want the world to forget about Angus:

  He’s smart, but studies for fun

  I met him at Uni. We were both studying ancient cultures

  His father expected him to follow in his footsteps and become a media tycoon

  He’s stinking rich, but he’s not pretentious about it, not one little bit

  When he eats ice cream he always ‘accidently’ gets some on his face - just to shit me

  His favourite pet was a dog named Minnie

  His hair is brown and curls up over his ears when he needs a hair cut

  I love him

  January 9

  I met Angus after work today. I needed a beer something fierce! Right from the moment he walked into the bar, I knew something was up. He looked like crap, that’s for sure and if I didn’t know any better, I would think he’d already started drinking without me. I quizzed him, but other than saying he had a headache, he insisted he was okay.

  January 10

  I’m hiding in the roof cavity of my house.

  I should have known better last night. Angus was sick, not drunk. But not good sick - Haum sick.

  This is my first encounter with zombies. Sure I’ve met a whole bunch of vamps and weres - most of them being my family - and I even know a bit about merpeople (well, actually ‘people’ is no longer correct since all the mermales seem to have been eaten by their spouses), but zombies are new to me.

  I am peering down through a small hole I punched in the ceiling with my biro. Angus can smell me, but he can’t work out where I am. I wish I didn’t have to do what has to be done. I wish Angus was like me - immune.

  I don’t want to shoot him.

  I still love him.

  Chapter Two

  Emeline had never thought that her life would come to this. It was not that long ago that an average day for her involved freely walking the streets of her hometown, Ingot and kissing her boyfriend regularly. Neither of these once common activities was currently advisable. Ingot was now a ghost town. The same could be said for most of the towns and cities across the world.

  Before van der Haum’s new miracle cure, Emeline’s family had been predisposed to diabetes and high blood pressure. After, she had seen her father’s side of the family mutate into merpeople and her mother’s family turned into werewolves.

  While all people, male or female, had the capacity to turn into werewolves, merpeople were an interesting breed. Mermaids were the only form there were no mermales. Instead, the mermaids bred with human males to produce offspring. However, when all the mutations had occurred, there were some mermales produced initially. There were humans that were predisposed to the mermaid gene, but were born male. These males lived a short amount of time and died once they had mated with a mermaid.

  Emeline and her brother, Warwick, were the only survivors of the family. They had seen and done things normal people would not. Only war survivors could be compared to the Hart siblings.

  It had fallen to Emeline to be in charge of dispatching her mother’s side of the family. First, she drew the short straw. Also, she was the only one who could shoot a gun with great accuracy, at that stage anyway. Warwick had certainly obtained a reliable strike rate now, due to all the recent practice. Since guns were not common in Australia, Emeline was not the norm.

  She was now a wanted person, since she was one of the few left who could kill werewolves from a distance. Vampires were no issue for her either, but in their case she preferred to hunt with a bow and arrow. While silver-tipped bullets could be shot quite easily from guns, vampires could only be killed with wood and garlic. The arrows were coated with a garlic mixture as a double whammy for the prompt disposal of these creatures of the night.

  By the winter, Emeline had killed half of her family. It did strange things to her well-being. Luckily, Emeline had learned early on in the piece that shooting from a distance turned out to be some kind of blessing in disguise. She could almost pretend that she was just target shooting. From faraway, zombies and vampires were just people-shaped things that needed to be hit.

  It was only in the middle of the night that those images came back to haunt her.

  Some people saw this as a blessing, since she could channel that grief into aggression and then vent her spleen on vampires, but not Emeline or her brother. Instead, she locked her grief away where no one could see it. She was now an effective killing machine.

  The death of her father’s side of the family had fallen to her brother, Warwick. Needless to say, he was affected differently. Warwick grieved openly for his actions. He had no nightmares and was a quieter person as a result. His pain was etched across his face for everyone to see. In many ways, the siblings had traded genders. Certainly, Emeline wasn’t able to work through her emotions or process them.

  Warwick had a theory on that. Normally men used guns as weapons. Emeline now used this weapon extensively. Originally, she had gotten a gun license only because she was female and it was not expected of her. As a result, she had been affected in a masculine way.

  Warwick, on the other hand, had to deal with merpeople. So far, the only known way to dispose of a mermaid was either to skin it and burn the skin before the mermaid had a chance to regenerate a new one, or to confine them. Confining them prevented them from entering back into the water of a nighttime. Without the regenerative properties of water, the mermaids would eventually dry out and die. Warwick, being male, was not able to approach the mermaids due to the reaction their siren song had on men. He had to set up traps at night, when the mermaids were sleeping. In the morning, the mermaids would usually trigger the traps themselves. Curiosity was high on their list of character flaws.

  Now these two damaged siblings were all that they had left of their former life.

  Chapter Three

  It was just Emeline and her brother now. It had taken two months tops to infect the whole world, except for a precious few people like Emeline and her brother. Back before all the mutations occurred, both of them would have belonged to the elite group of long-living people, the types who could live to be one hundred and ten, even though they smoked a cigar every evening and had a neat scotch with every meal. Now they were members of a quickly shrinking population.

  Many people died at the hands of those creatures left. Most zombies now were the result of short-livers that had been bitten. Zombies were the only other creatures who appeared to have a shorter life span than Emeline’s unique little group. And, if all the urban legends and fairy tales were anything to go by, all the other creatures had the potential of outliving humans by tens, if not hundreds, or thousands of years. Since they had been spot on in a lot preventative and elimination methods, this was looking more likely by the day.

  That is how Emeline came to be sitting in a field looking for zombie mutant creatures.

  Now instead of working in job that paid in money, most people now worked within their little sheltered communities. Payment came in
the form of protection and food.

  Emmy and Warwick had deserted their hometown of Ingot which lay low in a gully. They moved to higher ground that could be fortified and used as a lookout. Every night, as the sun set, Emeline looked down on the old town. Every day it got a little bit greener, as Mother Nature reclaimed it. Sometimes it got a little blacker too, as buildings burned.

  An entire village of necessity had sprung up on one of the smaller hills that surrounded the town of Ingot. Originally, there had been a hospital up on the hill that housed the mentally insane. It was perfect for the survivors’ new needs. A huge brick and wrought iron fence surrounded it. Iron kept the fairies out.

  The first thing on their agenda after people had started to move in, besides growing food, was to dig a moat. Luckily, one of the short-livers had owned a dirt moving business. It had been a much shorter task than they had originally thought, once the big trucks were bought in. They nearly completed it before the petrol ran out for the first time.

  The hospital was called Daisy Hill: Home for the Mentally Unstable. It was lucky that the electricity had never failed them yet. But then again, Daisy Hill had its own power supply, as well as solar back up. One of the new residents had run their previous home on solar power. They were now able to maintain and add to the existing solar system, so the facility ran without too much difficulty.

  Around the perimeter, and in the gap where the moat did not meet, garlic grew. Both the water and the garlic were deterrents to vampires and merpeople. There were other measures to keep the compound safe, although many of them were superstitious in nature. However, it was better to be safe than sorry, or so most people believed. Where possible at least two deterrents were used against any one mutation.